


AU #1

by project_break



Series: In Another Universe [2]
Category: U-KISS
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 10:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/project_break/pseuds/project_break
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eli has a crush. Dongho has a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	AU #1

In another universe, Dongho has a problem.

"He's really cute!"

"So you won't stop saying. Shut up about it to us and go tell him!"

"I can't!"

"Why not?!"

"I get stupid around him." _You're stupid anyway_ , Dongho thought. "You tell him for me, Dongho. Please?"

"What? No! Why me? Do it yourself, whimp!"

"I can't!"

"WHY?!"

"Because what if he thinks I'm dumb?"

"You _are_ dumb. He knows you; he won’t be shocked. Come on, Eli. Man up. Kevin's the nicest guy on the fucking planet. I’m sure he’ll be careful with your fragile feelings when he’s turning you down."

"Not helping!"

"Dongho, stop harassing him." Dongho wheeled on Soohyun and stuck a finger in his face. Soohyun snapped at it like Dongho’s two month old puppy and Dongho whipped his hand back. So much for college instilling maturity in people. 

" _I'm_ harassing _him_? You're kidding, right? It’s alright for you, off at your fancy university for three quarters of the year, but I've had to listen to this mushy idiocy for the past five months and I'm about to lose my mind!" He sank down onto the bench and put his head in his hands. 

"I don't know," AJ said from his left. "Eli's right: he is pretty cute. He's nice, too, and smart, and he--"

"Oh my God! Not you, too!" Dongho moaned. "Is there anyone left that I know who doesn't have a crush on my stupid cousin?" 

"Who's your stupid cousin?" Dongho froze and raises his head carefully out of his hands to confront Kevin's brightly smiling face. 

"I don't!" Hoon said, a beat too late. Kiseop elbowed him and he whined. 

"Er. Girl on my dad's side; you don't know her. Real slut," Dongho lied, badly, and Kevin arched an eyebrow at him as he slid onto the bench next to Eli, who instantly went into try-hard mode. 

"Heeeey, Kevin. Catch the ball game yesterday?" He leaned toward him, arm resting on their lunch table, a look that was approaching McDonald’s levels of greasy coating his features. Kiseop made kissy faces at the back of Kevin's head. Soohyun spotted it, tried to muffle a laugh and instead made an awkward snorting sound. Yeah, upper level education was not working miracles on him. 

"Ball game?" Kevin asked, smiling with confusion and tilting his head a little to the side. That got AJ, who propped his sociology book up on the table and hid behind it so he could laugh hysterically into his fist. 

"Yeah...uh," Eli said, faltering spectacularly. "You know. Um. Yankees versus the Orioles?"

"I don't really watch baseball," Kevin said apologetically. "Did you enjoy it, though? Who won?"

"Yeah, uh. The Orioles won. The Yankees were robbed..." he decrescendoed, obviously unable to come up with anything relevant to say. Dongho wondered if the punishment for pulling a fire alarm was worth the sure-to-be-blissful respite from having to watch his best friend failing at flirting with his favourite cousin. 

"So, Kevin!" Hoon piped up from behind him, mercifully. "Did you see that they announced the dates for the American Idol auditions in D.C.? Soohyun and I were thinking about carpooling if you want to come along."

"Oh," Kevin said, twisting to look at him and then glancing over at Soohyun. "Yeah, maybe! When are they?"

"Sometime in May, I think. I can't remember."

"Me neither," Soohyun chimed in, crossing from behind Dongho to stand behind Kevin and put a hand on his shoulder, "I think a saw a flyer for it on one of the bulletin boards inside the main doors when I was coming in, though. Let's go look."

"Yeah. Okay." Kevin stood up and Eli looked like he wasn't sure if he was disappointed or relieved. "It was nice talking to you, Eli. I feel like I haven't seen you around much lately. Maybe you and me and Dongho can do a movie night sometime soon. That'd be nice, huh?"

Dongho smiled brittley at the thought of being used as the middle ground where Eli, who was nodding his head in mute agreement, could practice his nonsense on Kevin. He liked them both, truly. Just not when they were together.

"See you later, guys!" Kevin waved as he followed Hoon and Soohyun away. Once they were out of sight, Dongho dropped his head to the table with a thump, which knocked over AJ's textbook/laughter shield and revealed him nearly crying with mirth. 

"Oh my GOD, Eli!" he wheezed, gasping for air, "you're _such_ a fucking loser."

"Kevin apparently doesn't mind, though," Kiseop said with a leer in his voice. "Trying to set up a date with you, huh? Maybe you're not so hopeless after all."

"It's not a date!" Eli protested weakly, face the colour of an overripe tomato. "Dongho would be there."

"Oh, Jesus!" Dongho said, picking his head up off the table and glaring at him with the full force of his wrath. "It had better not be a date while I'm there. If you two start making out in my bedroom, I swear to God I'll murder you both and bury your bodies miles apart so you can never be together. Ever. Again."

"Mmm, Eli," AJ whispered. "Making sweet love with Kevin to the sound of GTA with the scent of Dongho's old socks on the air. Sexy."

The bell ringing and sending them to opposite ends of campus was the only thing which prevented the dual forces of Eli and Dongho from killing AJ and then ripping up his precious composition books. 

 

"Eli's a moron," Dongho said, bouncing a tennis ball between his feet where he had them resting on his bedroom wall, head almost falling off the other side of his bed.

"Oh, yeah," Kiseop agreed, spinning around in nauseating circles in Dongho's desk chair. "I mean: 'duh.' But Kevin likes him back, so maybe they're compatibly mentally incompetent."

"Do you think you could maybe wait to insult me until I'm out of the room?" Kevin asked drily, peering up from Dongho’s floor where he was doing his (and so also Hoon’s) Calculus homework.

"We respect you too much for that," Kiseop replied woozily, tipping out of the chair and landing on Kevin's back in a sprawl. 

"Owww! Kiseop! How are you so freaking heavy?" Kevin complained from under him, trying to reach back and swat him with the hand not currently holding a pencil. 

"It's all muscle. You wouldn't understand. Anyway, better get used to it, stick bug," Kiseop drawled, avoiding his attempts to hit him with little effort. "Eli weighs a fuck ton more than I do."

"Ha," AJ said, glancing over the top of his textbook. " _Fuck_ ton. Very appropriate."

"Oh," Hoon said, also looking over the top of AJs textbook. "Because they're going to be fucking a ton. I get it!"

Kevin did an excellent impression of a chameleon trying to blend into Dongho’s burgundy rug.

"I hate you all," Dongho announced blandly to the wall. 

 

“Why won’t you just tell him that you like him and put me out of my misery?” Dongho demanded of Kevin once Eli left the basement to make more popcorn. “If he keeps making moony faces at you in my presence, I’m going to be forced to surgically secure a paper bag over his head.”

“Why are you so violent?” Kevin asked, instead of replying, looking away from his cell phone to give Dongho a brief, concerned look. 

“I’m not violent! I haven’t done anything violent yet. But if you’re asking why I’m feeling violent urges, it’s because I’ve had to watch my best friend pining uselessly for you because you’re afraid of your mom.”

Kevin put the phone down at that. Uh oh. Dongho was in trouble.

“You’ve met my mom.”

“I have.”

“Don’t tell me you’d ever want to introduce a boyfriend to her.”

“Not unless I really hated him or thought he needed a lecture on very specific parts of scripture.”

“Exactly.”

“So what? It’s not like anyone’s going to tell on you.”

Kevin gave him a Look. “Have you met Eli? He’s not exactly the soul of discretion.”

“Well he’s not dumb enough to _tell your mother_. He’s got at least half a brain in his head. I mean, he’s capable of human speech and everything.”

“He doesn’t have to say anything. He’s just obvious. I could tell he liked me from the moment I met him and I’m about as oblivious as they come, so I’m told.”

Dongho glared at him.

“If you don’t tell him, I will. I will singlehandedly ward off your mother if you will just get the fuck together with him, because I am sick to death of hearing about how cute you are and how nice your smile is. It’s gross.”

He expected Kevin to reply with something about how he was offended that Dongho didn’t think he was cute, but Kevin was staring over his head. Dongho turned around to see Eli standing at the foot of the stairs with a bowl of popcorn in his hand and his mouth hanging open.

“Oh great,” Dongho said, standing up from the couch. “You heard that, huh? Fantastic. Well, I’m leaving. I’m going to Alexander’s to see if he can’t help me out with my Spanish homework. You two get to stay here and sort yourselves out. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. And I swear to God: if you have sex in my house, I will ship you both to North Korea in a box labelled ‘nuclear material’. I’m not joking.”

“Uh…” Eli said as Dongho walked past him, and Dongho turned and gave him a two-handed shoved on the back, all but into Kevin’s lap. The last thing he heard before he closed the door at the top of the stairs behind him was Kevin saying, 

“…Hi…”

 

“My eyes! Oh my God, my eyes!” 

“Calm down, Dongho. It’s my house, I can do what I want here. You don’t like it, you can leave.” And then Eli kissed Kevin again, apparently just to prove it.

Dongho let out a small noise of distress.

“Make up your mind,” Soohyun said from where his head was resting in Hoon’s lap. “You wouldn’t shut up about getting them together before. You don’t get to act all grossed out now that you got your wish.” Hoon nodded and went back to petting his hair. Speaking of gross...

“All I wanted was for Eli to shut up,” Dongho whined, and Kevin patted his head sympathetically. 

“You’re a really bad liar, but it’s cute that you tried,” he said.

“I hope you marry him and you’re stuck with him forever,” Dongho snapped.

“Aw! That’s sweet, Dongho!” Kiseop crooned.

“Stay out of it, loser.”

“Oh, are you feeling left out?” AJ asked, suddenly appearing next to him and nearly making him upset his bowl of cold spaghetti-o’s.

“Jesus, AJ! What?”

“Here, I can make it better.” And then AJ swooped in and kissed him on the cheek. And then pulled back and fluttered his eyelashes at him like some demonic fairy-tale princess.

“I hate you all,” Dongho said.


End file.
